Effect of thyroid therapy on the tone and contractility of the urinary bladder in hypothyroidism.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION IT IS a well known fact that in myxedema there is hypotonia of the heart (1), of the uterus (2), of the alimentary canal (manifested as megaduodenum (3) or megacolon (4, 5)), and of the gallbladder (6, 7). Evans (8) mentions the case of a myxedematous patient who had difficulty at the beginning of micturition and pollakiuria, and in whom volumes of residual urine ranging from 700 to 1,500 cc. were obtained by catheterization of the bladder. A similar case was observed by Escamilla (9). All these manifestations of hypotonia of the visceral muscles disappear after treatment with desiccated thyroid. These facts led us to make a graphic study of the tone of the urinary bladder in myxedema, employing the method which Alvarez and Caldeyro- Barcia (10) developed for the study of the tone of the pregnant uterus. In this report we present the results obtained in 3 patients with primary thyroid insufficiency.